BestandTeile – Das Jahrbuch der KIT-Fakultät für Architektur 2022

Preface
Prof. Dirk Hebel
Dean of the Department
Looking back on the academic year 2021, we must speak of
a mixed situation, of ups and downs, of opening and closing,
which the pandemic forced us into again this year. And yet
the faculty has continued to develop, has taken up the challenge,
has developed new teaching formats and tools that we
would not want to miss in the future. Even at the beginning
of 2022, we stagger into the next few months with a palpable
uncertainty that requires our full attention and quick action,
as we have learned over the last two years. I would like
to take this opportunity to once again thank all those involved
in the faculty for their commitment in this exceptional
situation. Their unwavering will to face this uncertainty
and to do everything possible to further advance our principles
and convictions of relevant and responsible teaching
and research, and to create the necessary spaces and platforms
for this, is unmistakable.
Another crisis burst into the management of the
pandemic towards the end of the academic year. A war
of aggression on Ukraine, which leaves us perplexed and
agitated, because we are also directly affected here as teachers
and researchers who have built up and maintained
connections and relationships with Ukraine and also Russia
in recent years. These have now been abruptly torn apart
and stopped by the brutality and inhumanity of a regime
that we cannot and should not equate with partner institutions
and people with whom we have maintained close
academic relations for years and will hopefully do so again.
Here, too, we are experiencing solidarity with those in need
and, at the same time, a new self-awareness of a European
society that can only solve and tackle these crises and challenges
together.
And this perhaps also gives us hope again for issues
that have been with us for years and that we must not forget
Preface
9